Augers have been used in the past for moving loose materials from one location to another. Augers have also been used to compress materials. The typical screw flights of augers, using known mechanical principles lend themselves to compaction of materials in a simple and uncomplicated manner. Augers have a further advantage over other forms of compression machinery in that compression augers usually require minimal horsepower for operation.
Augers used particularly for compacting vegetation have found use in field bailers and in stationary baling apparatus. Pelletizers, for example will often make use of an auger for progressively compressing materials into a semi-solid pellet state. The pellets are typically extruded in a continuous stream through perforations in a die. Augers used in compaction and baling of loose vegetation such as alfalfa, straw and the like, however are not typically used in an efficient manner and are generally designed to operate with a particular form of material for compaction.
In many cases shipping baled vegetation over long distances dictates that the materials to be shipped be of high density to insure maximum load concentration and in many cases pricing is gauged by container or truck load. High volume and low density becomes costly and undesirable attributes of a load.
An object of the present invention is to provide an auger compactor that will accept many different forms of cut or otherwise harvested vegetation, including (but not limited to) alfalfa hay, grasses, oats wheat barley, rape (cut for hay), and straws to be stored and shipped if desired in small dense bales.